Among the distinguished and ancient ranks of literary genres, chick lit hardly enjoys the most exalted position. A term of abuse for some, a back-handed compliment for others, most would agree that the recent tradition of light, comic, and mostly female-centred writing has something of an image problem.

Enter the Melissa Nathan Award for comedy romance, the second installment of which was won last night by the novelist Lisa Jewell at a ceremony hosted by the comedian and fan of the genre Jo Brand.

Jewell took the top £5,000, Tesco-sponsored, Best Comedy Romance prize for her sixth novel, 31 Dream Street. The book tells the story of the burgeoning love between a misfit, failed poet and his neighbour, who has for years been watching him and his string of unusual tenants from her house across the street.

Speaking to guardian.co.uk today, Jewell expressed her particular delight at receiving the prize for a best-selling genre little regarded by the literary establishment.

"You feel undervalued when you write the kind of fiction I write," she said. "So it's great to have this genre given its own night of appreciation and recognition. To win is just wonderful."

She also expressed her surprise at winning a prize for "comedy romance", suggesting that her book, which she recognised would attract the label "chick lit", or "popular women's fiction", as she prefers to call it, was "neither particularly funny, nor particularly romantic".

Jewell, who is a judge on this year's Costa first novel award, added that the prize represented an important development in the public's perception of the genre.

"The award is definitely something the genre needs, and more importantly is something the reader needs. People say 'chick lit' and what they mean is 'crap'. And so even though you might sell 100,000 copies of a book, you're never going to win a prize.

"These are books that people don't just read, they devour them - they stay up into the early hours because they want to devour them."

Although Jewell's prize was awarded on the basis of her novel in its entirety, the evening's other prizes answered to more restricted criteria. Among five other prize-winners, Victoria Clayton won the Best Bastard award for her character Sebastian in A Girl's Guide to Kissing Frogs, Christina Jones took the Best Bitch gong for Heaven Sent, and Louise Harwood scooped the romance-heavy Best First Kiss award for Hippy Chick.

The award was set up last year and named after author Nathan, who died of cancer in 2006 aged 37, and who also gave her name to the Melissa Nathan Foundation, a charity set up to provide financial help to families in crisis.

The "comedy romance" label is partly proffered as an attempt to rebrand chick lit by emphasising the comic side of such writing over and above the romance.

Last year's winner was Marian Keyes, for Anybody Out There, but perhaps the most famous and successful exemplar of the genre is Sophie Kinsella, whose latest novel Remember Me? was published in February at a time when her total UK sales had long since passed the 3m watermark.

Kinsella was among the judges for this year's prizes, alongside Joanna Trollope.

Hosting the award ceremony in London last night, which closed with an operatic rendition of Barry White's You're My First, My Last, My Everything, Brand reflected on her joy at "actually being forced to read the books".

"Normally I have too much to do and never get the chance to sit down, let alone shove a book in front of my face. And the panel of judges were a right good laugh to work with. May the awards run and run. I have just finished my third novel and am setting the judges up for a big fat bribe so I win next year."